| With the advance of global economic integration, culture and education in our country are also in fast development. English, as a global language, is the bridge of communication among people from different countries. Great importance is attracted to the English education by the Chinese Ministry of Education. Students of English majors at the universities and colleges are trained to have a good knowledge of English language and culture, and can use English and native language to do different jobs. As a multi-ethnic country, China has paid much attention to the minority nationality education and teaching. For the Mongolian English majors in the Mongolia province, their first language is Mongolian, their second language is Chinese, and the third language is English. Here arises the question whether there are any similarities and differences in English learning needs between Mongolian students and non-Mongolian students? For the English teachers, they cannot help students solve learning problems or improve teaching quality until they fully understand the students’ learning needs.NA(Needs Analysis) study abroad began in the 1970 s, and foreign scholars have made remarkable achievements in both theoritical and emperical study of NA: the definitions, classification and models of NA are included in the theoretical research; for the empirical research, the scholars have focused on the design of foreign language curriculum,social needs analysis and foreign language learning needs analysis.Domestic research on NA begins much later compared to that aborad.Cheng Xiaotang and Shu Dingfang classified the NA into different types.Most NA empirical studies at home are done by way of the questionnaire study and interview that are designed on the basis of NA model proposedby foreign scholars. Their research concerns the areas of the curriculum design, the target language needs, teachers’ teaching methods, textbook usage, foreign language learning needs, etc. In recent years, the NA sutdy of the minority group students gets more and more attention from the researchers. Relevant researchers include students’ needs analysis towards curriculum development, textbooks and teachers.In this paper, the author makes a comaparative analysis of English learning needs between Mongolian English majors and non-Mongolian English majors, for an overall understanding of their learning background,learning needs, language level and learning strategies by the way of questionaire survey and interview. The questionaire is designed according to Dudley-Evans and St. John’s model. In this paper, the independent sample t test with SPSS 17.0 was used to find similarities and differrences between Mongolian English majors and non-Mongolian English majors. The research finds that Mongolian students’ English level is inferior to non-Mongolian stuents’ level; Compared with Mongolian English majors, non-Mongolian Engllish majors expect their courses to be more practical and interesting, but they seem less satisfied with their textbooks; Mongolian students’ self-evaluation on their writing ability is higher than non-Mongolian students’.Based on the analysis, the author proposes some suggestions for the improvement of the curricula, teaching materials and teachers development for Mongolian and non-Mongolian English majors. Firstly,proper courses should be arranged to suit the different learning needs and growth of both the Mongolian and non-Mongolian students, for example,to provide more writing classes for non-Mongolian students and provide more basic English courses in listening, speaking, reading, writing,translating for Mongolian students and give them more practical opportunities to teach English directly in Mongolian. Secondly, the difficulty of non-Mongolian students’ textbook can be deepened, and for the Mongolian students, they should have more of their own Englishtextbook with Mongolian explanation. Thirdly, more English teachers that can use Mongolian to teach in English should be trained and employed in the universities and colleges. |
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